Very briefly, West Sussex County Council and FutureGov are hacking the library in Worthing next month.
I’ve written a bit about it on the Adur and Worthing Councils digital blog, in case you’re interested.
Tag: event
Blog academy
I’m running a day long workshop in London on the topic of blogging – might you be interested?
Here’s the skinny:
Join Dave Briggs for a day’s practical, hands-on workshop learning how to be a better blogger!
There are only 10 places available for this workshop, so sign up quickly!
It’s suitable for anyone who wants to start blogging, or who wants to improve their blogging to enable them to meet their goals. Equally, those who want to encourage blogging within their organisations will find this workshop helpful.
The day will cover:
- Why blogging is a good idea and how it can be used
- Choosing a platform
- Setting up a new blog
- How to write engaging content
- Ideas for different types of blog posts
- Using different types of media
- Practice writing and publishing posts, with constructive critique
- Post event support by email for those that need it
The event will take place in central London at a venue to be confirmed. Lunch and refreshments will be provided, as will laptops to enable practical work to be undertaken.
Interested? Sign up on Eventbrite. Register before the middle of June and you get a discount!
Link roundup
I find this stuff so you don’t have to:
- Tools for ideation and problem solving: Part 1
- 21st Century public service – is it a thing? « @Podnosh
- Autodesk 123D Design – free 3D printing design software
- Data, information, knowledge and power – exploring Open Knowledge’s new core purpose – from @timdavies
- All Things IC | How to write an internal communication strategy
- Code Red_: the rescue of healthcare.gov by a small team of volunteer techies
- A Brief Guide To Selecting A Community Platform
- Mixing the unconference format into a traditional conference – @lloyddavis
- Pico: No more passwords!
- Dancing Giants: Can big companies still innovate? | PandoDaily
Link roundup
I find this stuff so you don’t have to:
- ongoing by Tim Bray · Software in 2014
- Joho the Blog » What blogging was – *sniff*
- Is Local GDS a good idea? « @demsoc
- Let’s Replace Council Websites with Local.Gov.Uk – a GDS for Local Government – @copley_rich
- Joined Up Philanthropy data standards: seeking simplicity, and depth – @timdavies
- Can we fix democracy? #ukvotecamp | Sharon O’Dea
- [toread] How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet
- [toread] Broadcast Education: a Response to Coursera – Hybrid Pedagogy
- Virtual Community Summit – great looking community management conference / via @fevebee
- The Intrinsic Value of Blogging | Matt Mullenweg
Link roundup
I find this stuff so you don’t have to:
- Toe and HTTPS | Electronic Frontier Foundation
- The Dark Side of E-Books
- To the internet giants, you’re not a customer. You’re just another user – by @jjn1
- meandering thoughts on the NSA scandal from @zephoria
- inessential.com: How We Work Together
- Yocto Project | Open Source embedded Linux build system, package metadata and SDK generator
- So what is the future of social media in learning? – @learningpool @watfordgap
- Announcing Open Source Junction 5: Open Source Meets the Public Sector
- A quick personal reflection on @XJamGov and #ggovjam from @carlhaggerty
- Getting Started: Building a Chrome Extension
What I’ve been reading
I find this stuff so that you don’t have to.
- We the People | The White House – E-petitions, White House style
- How to create sustainable open data projects with purpose – Nice article from MySociety's Tom Steinberg.
- One in six IT projects is a ‘ticking timebomb’ – University of Oxford – "A surprisingly high number of business and government technology projects are 'ticking time bombs', according to researchers at the University of Oxford. "
- Slashdot and CmdrTaco — the end of another geek era – Really nice article about a great online community
- TransferSummit | 2011: Open Innovation Everywhere – This looks like a fabulous open source jamboree.
You can find all my bookmarks on Pinboard.
The Learning Pool Community Day – 14 September
I’ll be joining my good friends at Learning Pool on the 14th September in celebrating their Community Day – where the UK’s biggest public sector online learning community will be coming to life.
The packed agenda features plenty of reasons to sign up for a place, if you haven’t already.
Keynote presentations from Dr Andrew Learner of iESE and Dean Shoesmith, President of the PPMA are followed by interactive seminars on topics as diverse as engaging people with e-learning, measuring return on investment and making the best use of emerging technology (I’m helping out with that one).
The day will be rounded off with the Learning Pool Customer of the Year Awards, which are always good fun – and I’m sure the party will carry on afterwards too.
Five more reasons to attend:
- Cement relationships
- Get ideas for your own practical initiatives
- Hear about best practice and benchmark with your peers
- Receive free expert guidance and useful tips
- Take away strategies you can implement immediately
So, with just a handful of places left, sign up now!
What I’ve been reading
I find this stuff so that you don’t have to.
- 2011 London Social Business Summit – Great content from this event.
- Introducing South West LocalGovCamp #swlocalgc « Carl’s Notepad – This should be a good one!
- ’100 million comments a year’ – mutual support and advice in a shrinking state – How government could be making better use of online communities – great stuff from Will Perrin.
- Misleading money-saving claims help no one – Ben Goldacre exposes the lazy thinking involved in some "research" about council spending – curiously promoted by CLG.
- BBC News – Google’s Chromebook – lost in the cloud? – Interesting review of the new Chrome based laptops.
- A little local difficulty – honestlyreal – A very useful primer on Local DirectGov
- How To Run A News Site And Newspaper Using WordPress And Google Docs – Really nice workflow system.
You can find all my bookmarks on Pinboard.
Internal communications teacamp
Another event-pimping guest post, this time from Sharon O’Dea.
Contrary to popular belief, webbies aren’t always glued to their screens and hidden away in dank basements. They love to get out and about and network with their peers.
It all began with UKGovCamp, a one-day event for public sector digital types. These events – now in their third year – have no set agenda; people come with their ideas and problems and pitch sessions to the other attendees. The agenda is cobbled together on the day using post-it notes and flipchart paper. The result is an unconference far more interesting, informative and relevant than any event you’ve ever paid big bucks to attend.
This span off into Teacamp, the monthly informal get-together of Whitehall digital communicators and social media specialists. Each month 20 to 30 Whitehall webbies meet at a cafe in Westminster to share ideas, solve problems, learn something new and drink some tea. Usually someone volunteers to do a ten-minute talk on something cool they’re doing, or to gather feedback on a specific topic or project, and then it opens up to the group to ask questions, say what they think or seek solutions to their own work challenges.
It’s a fantastic model for professional networking and knowledge-sharing. One which it would be a shame to resign to the digital sector alone. If there’s one thing Internal Communicators are good at, it’s nicking good ideas from elsewhere and applying them in our own work contexts.
So with that in mind, myself and two other internal communicators are plotting the very first Internal Comms Teacamp.
We’re inviting internal communications specialists to come along to share ideas, natter about comms, and drink some tea. It’s open to anyone who works in employee communications, not just digital types, from the public and private sectors.
We’re kicking off at Apostrophe in Market Place (near Oxford Circus) from 4-6pm on May 25th. Come along! Or give me a shout via the Contact Me form or on Twitter if you want to know more.
Bookmarks for October 3rd through October 19th
I find this stuff so that you don’t have to.
- Solace 2010 write up; Localism, hash tags and a reflection on priorities – Great write up from Catherine Howe.
- Thriving too: Big Society: Yours Mine and Ours – "So how do smaller networks, organisations and projects engage with Big Society if they don’t feel completely comfortable in the space?"
- How #gmp24 happened – "The challenge was to find a way to show people the wide range of issues the police are called to deal with."
- The Problem with WordPress at Helpful Technology: Blog – Great summary of what sounds like a great event.
- When social media reveal IT’s soft belly – "When I was in Canada last week, I visited two provincial government organizations that offered two intriguing examples of how social media are challenging their IT organizations."
- Who Should be Your Chief Collaboration Officer? – Whose in charge of getting people to talk to each other in your organisation?
- Jimmy Leach: Keep the blogs alight – "We may not solve foreign policy issues through blogs, but we can at least explain them better."
- Open source based Managed Learning platform saves public purse £36 million – Learning Pool saves government cash. Find out how.
- Too much money plays against government 2.0 – "Definitely an interesting perspective: transparency is not always a desirable attribute, and government 2.0 is more interesting – and useful – where the are scarce rather than abundant resources."
- Local By Social – Series of events around the country by LGID promoting online innovation in local gov.
- PDF Europe round up – Great summary of the recent PDF Europe event from @curiousc
- Catch.com – Interesting looking Evernote alternative.
- Training lessons learned: Code dojo, whiteboards, interactivity – "Training can be an incredibly boring, frustrating exercise."
- The four sorts of Innovation-Getter | Kate Bennet – "After working in an Innovation team for the last year it’s become apparent that there are four sorts of “innovation-getters” in organisations."
- The Stack: The Fifteen Classes of the Social Business Software Suite – Interesting attempt at classification of social tech
You can find all my bookmarks on Delicious. There is also even more stuff on my shared Google Reader page.
You can also see all the videos I think are worth watching at my video scrapbook.